It’s the weekend before Christmas, and honestly, we haven’t got time to fuck around. No time for love, Dr. Jones! So please enjoy my entirely unrelated Christmas gifs scattered throughout the proceedings, and let’s get to it!!

Me, coming home from seeing my family after Christmas.

Oh, shit, wait.

See, I say NO TANGENTS, GUYS! and then Facebook announces today that you’ll be able to search for events by area, browse by category and location and have all these other enhanced features that basically amounts to a comprehensive event listing. All that guff about the alt weekly needing to do it and the solution was under our noses the whole time! Thank goodness I didn’t take that commenter’s suggestion to go to school to learn programming and build a listings database so that I could BE USEFUL FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE. Anyway, this upgrade is a real thing that happened, though it’s not live on my phone yet. SO, lucky you, you can go do more productive shit than sitting around here getting dumber by reading these words - though I do hope you’ll stay with me for the curative and effervescent properties of this here web tonic. OK, now I’m done, here we go:

Competish is hot tho. I bet it will be tough for the cool kids to decide between LoF and that Beam/Baldwin combo. Pro tip, cool kids: DO BOTH. Quick aside: I love how these cool kids find that it is cool to get up close to the stage and really engage with the music, I think that’s great - but I think it’s unfortunate that dancing and having a good time and generally not being self-conscious is sacrificed for this enthusiastic attention to the music. Cool kids, I want you to know: I’m behind you - physically, but you know what, also emotionally - and I’m probably back here drinking a drink and dancing a little bit and thinking about how your suspenders and manpris and Steve Zissou hat are ridiculous because I am very, very old, BUT YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME to come and relax and dance with the olds. I promise, you’ll remember enough to impress your friends - trust me, they don’t care. Your authenticity as a music fan won’t be compromised if you spend 3 minutes not paying attention. You could be like, “dude hollowed out a huge ass winter turnip he grew in his yard and played it like a djembe” and most people would be like, HAHAHA OH NO NOW I HAVE FOMO but the truth is they don’t give any shits about the music. Anyway, relax guys. Grab a goddam daiquiri and let’s have a conversation in the back of the room for 30 seconds and then you can get back to being intensely focused.

Geno’s has Stillborn Condition, Devil’s Night Out and Loki, which is a heavy metal show, I guess stoner metal given that Stillborn Condition’s facebook page urges you to come to this show to “hang out, drink, smoke trees, and listen to some great local music,” and I bet I know which part of that will never happen inside of Geno’s on JR’s watch (the smoking trees part, duh - bands both old and new, it’s never a good idea to advertise illegal drug use at your show in a venue. Don’t do that, this isn't 1987). Both Stillborn Condition and Devil’s Night Out are brand new bands playing their first shows. I was at the studio when Devil’s Night Out were recording a new song a couple of months ago, and they’re good at what they do (playing stoner metal). Also, apparently both drummers from these bands are celebrating their birthdays. There is a lot going on here, get hella baked bro (at home) and go check it out.

Z Dance Club has what appears to be… a rave? Is this a rave, you guys? Pretty sure it’s a rave. The last Plague of the year is at Asylum with DJs ZNUH and Scavenger. I don’t know what’s at Salvage because they refuse to update their web site for December and I feel bad bugging Johnny again to find out what they have, but I’ll update this when/if I find out. Flask has Friction Fridays, Empire has The Wayyback which is a funk/soul DJ night, Blue has Shanna Underwood, Martin England and the DuPont Brothers, and Dogfish has jazz with LQH.

Saturday, December 19

Poland Street House has an early show with Greef and a handful of touring rock bands from around New England. There’s a band on this bill named Experimental Santa. I’d like to see Experimental Santa. Maybe I will, maybe I will.

Mayo Street Arts has Stämbandet, which is a nordic acapella group who will be performing nordic yule songs. Nordic yule songs! I’m very interested in this, I must go. Maybe I can meet someone who will celebrate hygge with me.

The Bob Charest Band is at PHOME, Flask has Future Classic 2 year anniversary, Dan Knusen and Glade Swope are performing a Christmas show at Strange Maine, Jonathan Theory is DJing at Styxx, A Space for Grace has an art show with some local DJs, Empire has Shutdown Brown which is a Maine funk band that looks like they’re not from Portland though I don’t really know, and Blue has Jazz at the Blue.

Ok everyone, we won’t see each other again before the High Holy day here in this great nation, so please, as you are celebrating with loved ones, remember to drive safely and not drunkly, be kind to the people who have to work on Christmas to serve you (or if you have to work, remember we’re all thinking of you) and don’t be upset if you don’t get the cha cha heels you were hoping for. There’s always next year.